"NIGHTINGALE: The Last Days of James Forrestal," the second conspiracy
theory opera in composer Evan Hause's "Defenestration Trilogy," will debut
May 19, 2002 at 8:00 PM at Present Company Theatorium at 198 Stanton between
Attorney and Ridge in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The Defenestration Operas
take as their subject matter certain dark corners of 20th century American
political or technological history, where human struggles for money and
power end in the death of modern heroes.

On May 22, 1949, James Vincent Forrestal, this nation's first Secretary of
Defense, plunged to his death from the sixteenth floor of the Bethesda Naval
Hospital. Forrestal, originally from Beacon, NY, was one of the most dynamic
figures in American politics during the Second World War and the beginning
of the Cold War. A self-made millionaire, he brought the methods of big
business from Wall Street to FDR's war machine as Under Secretary of the
Navy. During and after the war, he was also an outspoken opponent of
Communism and is considered by many to be the original Cold Warrior. The
death was officially ruled a suicide, the result of Forrestal's mental
exhaustion incurred by interservice rivalry during the unification of the
American military. Forrestal himself thought that he was a target for
assassins, a "delusion" that was offered as proof of his mental illness.

Librettist Gary Heidt researched Forrestal for several years, studying
published works and primary sources. The story cleaves to the actual
sequence of events during Forrestal's 50-day committment. Characters
include, in addition to Forrestal and his wife Josephine, his psychiatrist
George Raines, National Security Advisor Sidney Souers, Red Cross leader and
confidante Pauline Davis, President Harry Truman and various senators. The
libretto explores this mystery with a sense of daring, humor, and theatrical
panache. Hause, an up-and-coming classical composer, brings a highly
eclectic voice to the musical score.

BIOS:

Gary Heidt is a nationally published poet, novelist, performing artist, and
producer of music and theater. He is a graduate of Columbia College in New
York.

Evan Hause's music has been performed by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble,
Boston, Phoenix, Jacksonville, San Diego, Memphis, Grand Rapids and Utah
Symphonies, Salt Lake City Contemporary Music Consortium, and at the Banff
Centre for the Arts, CalArts, "Spring in Havana" Electronic Music Festival,
and June in Buffalo, where the Buffalo News wrote: "This is music with a
clear message and destination." He was commissioned twice last year by the
Albany Symphony who premiered his Trumpet Concerto on September 14. He has
received awards from ASCAP and residencies at the MacDowell Colony.

After an extended career in France both as an opera singer and director of
two chamber opera companies, Philippe Bodin is now active as an opera
director, coach and composer in New York. While in France, he studied piano,
architecture, theater and dance. In the US, he studied theater with Patrick
Stewart and James de Paul, and composition with Martin Bresnick and Jacob
Druckman. A frequent theater collaborator, his music has been performed at
the New Haven Repertory Theater, the Piccola Scala Milano, and the Sonic
Boom Festival NYC. He has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the
MacDowell Artist colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the
Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is the
first winner of the Los Angeles Music of Changes Composers' Portrait Series
2001. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Oberlin College and the Doctorate of
Musical Arts from Yale University.